Antifake / Factcheck

14 October 2022

Fake news of the week: Russian political analysts and media claim that Germans don’t feel bad about World War II

This rather common fake was voiced at a round table in Minsk by Vitaly Tretyakov

Olaf Scholz said that the Germans have no historical guilt towards Russians for the war and, therefore, he is ready to fight again. This rather common fake was voiced at a round table in Minsk by Vitaly Tretyakov, a Russian political analyst and regular participant of Solovyov's programmes: 

"Scholz says: We have no historical guilt, that's it, we have paid off World War II to the Russians. That's why they will bring the Bundeswehr tanks to the lands that are called Ukrainian, when, in fact, at least half of it is Novorossiya".

Similar statements can be fouгnd in pro-Russian telegram channels. Here, for example, is a post with the headline "Germany is no longer ashamed of its Nazi past" in the telegram channel "Release the Kraken" with an audience of almost 300 thousand subscribers. And here's what the Tsargrad TV channel says on its website:

"German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has made a statement that goes beyond all reasonable limits. The OstWest.tv channel quoted his words, which came close to rehabilitating Nazism. Scholz said that 24 February was a pivotal day in the continent's history. “Vladimir Putin wants to recreate the Russian Empire and rule Europe as he sees fit”, Scholz said, adding, “The Russian people don’t want war. This war will remain Putin's war”. He freed Germany of its historical guilt."

This refers to Olaf Scholz's speech to the Bundestag back on 27 February. "Tsargrad" in this news refers to the German Russian-language TV channel "OstWest.tv". Well, we checked this claim. On 27 February, OstWest broadcast the very same Scholz’s speech with Russian translation. You can find it on the channel's YouTube. And this is what Scholz actually said:

"Because it was Vladimir Putin, not the Russian people, who decided to engage in this war. And this war is Vladimir Putin's war. And it’s important to me that there is this difference. Because after World War II, the Russian and German people have been able to reconcile. And this is a very important brick in the foundation of our shared history."

So it turns out that Scholz didn’t utter the phrase: "He freed Germany from historical guilt". Instead he said that the Russian and German people were able to reconcile after the war. A completely different meaning. We even double-checked this in the transcript of Scholz's speech on the Federal Government website. In the official translation, the phrase sounds similar:

"Because reconciliation between Germans and Russians after the Second World War was – and remains – an important chapter of our shared history." 

So it turned out that "OstWest.tv ", to which Tsargrad refers, has nothing to do with it.

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